Chapter 40
By New Year’s Day, the Queen was better, well enough to take pleasure in her gifts, nodding her appreciation as each one was presented to her by Blanche Parry, who had been made Keeper of the Jewels.
Elizabeth paid Kate special thanks for the six handkerchiefs edged with gold, silver, and silk thread that she had made herself.
The ceremony over, Kate at last had time to see Francis. She found him in the White Hall, talking to some of his fellow councillors. He left them and joined her, and they walked around a cloister, looking out on the frosted grass of the lawn.
“It has been too long,” Kate said, leaning on his arm. “I could not get away.”
“Thank Providence that the Queen is restored to health, and not just for our sake,” he said, pulling her closer to him. “We have been very worried about what would happen if she was taken from us. We’d have Katherine Grey and the Queen of Scots pressing their claims. It could lead to war.”
“Heaven forbid! But she is well now.”
“Aye, and the Scots seem keen at last for their Queen to marry Leicester.”
But, inexplicably, Elizabeth had just changed her mind.
“The Queen of Scots has requested that Lord Darnley be sent to Scotland,” she announced to her ladies as they sat talking in her privy chamber. She still looked thin and tired after her brush with death, which made her look old beside the fresh young beauty of Beth and her other maids.
“And you are letting him go?” Kat asked, astonished.
“I think I will,” she replied.
“I thought you said you would never send him to Scotland,” Kate had to say.
“It is just a courtesy visit,” Elizabeth replied. “He has business of his father’s to attend to.”
Kate held her tongue. The Queen was no fool; they all knew perfectly well why he was going. He wanted to marry the Queen of Scots.
Elizabeth smiled. “I have my reasons for allowing him to go.”
As she led her ladies in to supper, she murmured in Kate’s ear, “If I give Queen Mary enough rope, she will hang herself. He is a nasty, vicious boy who will seize her crown if she lets him.”
Kate felt a chill come over her. She had a strong presentiment that something very bad would come of this.
—
She was present when Melville saw the Queen and told her that his mistress planned to marry Lord Darnley. “It was an immediate attraction, Madam. Her Majesty tried to control her feelings, but she has become so enamored of Lord Darnley that she cannot bear to be apart from him.”
Elizabeth smiled sweetly. “I am pleased to hear of her happiness. Yet I am not pleased with my subject Lord Darnley, who has gone north to Scotland in direct contravention of my command. He shall be hearing from me about this.”
Kate stared at her. Oh, she was playing a clever game, for the truth was very much otherwise. She had fully intended for Darnley to go north, calculating that Mary would find him beguiling, and had effectively set the fox on the hen. Melville looked completely nonplussed, as well he might.
Kate was more preoccupied with the marriage of her eldest son, Hal.
Twenty-four that April, he was to wed one of Elizabeth’s maids-of-honor, a sweet girl called Margaret, the only child and heiress of the very wealthy Sir Ambrose Cave, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Kate knew and liked Sir Ambrose, who chivalrously wore a yellow garter on his arm in honor of the Queen, who had dropped one while dancing.
Elizabeth was fond of Hal, not least, she said, because he was Kate’s son. “He is a fine young man,” she declared, “and I hold him in the highest esteem. I shall attend his wedding.”
It was a great honor, but Kate felt under even more pressure now to ensure that the day would go smoothly.
The nuptials were to be solemnized at Durham House on the Strand, and she was anxious that everything would be perfect.
But two weeks beforehand, she fell ill with stomach pains and had to take to her bed.
“This malady is the last thing I need,” she told Elizabeth when the Queen visited her, bringing a bowl of cherries. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have a flux and my belly hurts.”
“I will send for Dr. Huicke,” Elizabeth decided. He was the Queen’s own physician. “We must have you well again for the wedding.”
Kate felt relieved. With so much yet to arrange, she could not be lying here in bed.
Francis was with her, summoned by the Queen, when the doctor came. He asked her some questions, tested her water, and prescribed some physick. To her huge relief, she was soon up and about. Elizabeth embraced her warmly when she returned to her duties.
“It is thanks to you and Dr. Huicke that I am well again,” Kate told her.
—
The great day came. Kate wore a new gown of ash-colored satin trimmed with gold, with a quilted cap and a white veil.
“You look beautiful,” Francis complimented her, as they descended the stairs to the state rooms to check that everything was in place. She smiled and reached for his hand.
Downstairs, the guests were gathering: it was wonderful to see all their children together, for once.
There they stood, a shining group in their finery, with family members and numerous courtiers, among them Cecil and Mildred, and Leicester, as they had learned to call him, who was dressed as magnificently as a king.
There had been so much competition among foreign ambassadors for invitations that instructions had had to be issued asking them all to refrain from approaching the Queen when she appeared, lest sensitive matters of precedence cause offense to the rest.
Hal looked dashing in his new suit of white satin, and the little bride was a picture of loveliness in her crimson-and-gold gown, with her long straw-colored hair cascading down her back.
After Margaret had made her entrance on her father’s arm, the Queen arrived, attended by most of the great ladies of the court, and the ceremony began.
Kate wiped away a tear to see her son married, remembering him as a little boy in leading strings with an engaging smile and long skirts.
It seemed such a short time ago. He was a big, broad-shouldered man now, but the winning smile was still there, and it was a joy to see his new wife looking up at him so radiantly.
After the wedding came the bridal supper with a lavish array of tempting dishes.
That was followed by a masque depicting Hymen, the god of marriage.
As it was being performed, Kate saw Leicester looking meaningfully at the Queen, but she tapped him with her fan and kept her eyes glued to the players.
Afterward, there was dancing, then a thrilling tournament in the grounds, ordered specially by Elizabeth, which was a rare honor.
In the evening, the feasting began. The celebrations went on until half past one in the morning, by which time Kate was ready to drop.
But the bride and groom had yet to be put to bed, and she was pulled along by the other laughing ladies to prepare her daughter-in-law, while Francis and Sir Ambrose went off to clothe Hal in his nightgown.
Amid bawdy jests, the young couple were helped into bed and the guests stifled their mirth as the Queen’s chaplain blessed the nuptial couch and prayed that the pair be fruitful.
“To your duty, son Knollys!” roared Sir Ambrose.
“May God be with you both,” said Francis, much more on his dignity, firmly ushering the company out of the bedchamber.
Yet he quickly shed it when he and Kate were finally alone.
Pulling her into his arms, he tumbled her on the bed.
“I am remembering our own wedding night,” he murmured.
“You look as alluring now as you did then…”
—
The next day, when Kate arrived in Elizabeth’s bedchamber for the dressing ritual, she found the other ladies there, but not Kat. Elizabeth looked worried.
“Kat is not well. She has taken to her bed.”
Kat had been ill a few weeks earlier, but had since recovered, or so it seemed. No one had thought that it was anything serious.
“What’s the matter?” Kate asked.
“A fever,” Elizabeth said distractedly. “It came on in the night. I’ve sent for Dr. Huicke.”
As soon as she was dressed, Elizabeth went to sit at Kat’s bedside.
“She has loved her like a mother,” Blanche said, folding the Queen’s night rail.
“And Kat has looked after her like a mother,” Kate added. “She has been with her for most of her life.”
Later that morning, she peered around the door of Kat’s chamber. Kat was sleeping, but she was restless. Elizabeth raised a tragic face. “I don’t like the look of her. She’s burning up.” She touched Kat’s forehead. “She has too much yellow bile.”
“What did Dr. Huicke say?”
“He said that the fever must run its course. He has prescribed her some feverfew, but she will not take it.”
Kat seemed a little better that night. “She is sleeping more peacefully and Blanche is sitting with her,” Elizabeth said. “I feel I can go to bed now.”
Kate was woken the next morning by Blanche shaking her, looking distraught. “I can’t wake Kat! I watched over her all night and she was very restless, but within this last hour, her breathing changed and now she lies unmoving. I fear she has gone from us.”
Kate struggled out of bed, pulled on her night-robe, and hastened after Blanche.
Yes, there lay Kat, peaceful and still. Her eyes were open, but only the whites were showing.
The two women closed them, folded her arms over her breast, and said a short prayer for her, then reluctantly departed to break the news to Elizabeth.
“No!” the Queen cried. “It cannot be true! God would not be so cruel as to take her from me.”